If you ever need a real life example of the adage, "Where you stand depends on where you sit," you should consider the filibuster in the U.S. Senate.

If you are in the majority party, you despise it as a procedural abomination that obstructs the chamber's work. If, however, you are in the minority, it is the sturdy protection against majority tyranny.

That should tell you all you need to know about who is currently pushing to modify its obstructive power and who is fighting to preserve it: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., respectively. Senate Democrats, who expanded their majority by two in the recent election, want to change the rules. Reid is said to be pondering the "nuclear option" to curtail the filibuster with a simple majority vote — infuriating Republicans.

There is, however, another course that would keep the filibuster largely intact while curing it of some of its more onerous uses.

I will not lead you into the dark and tangled jungle of the legislative process. Reduced to its simplest components, the filibuster offers opponents of legislation six opportunities to block a bill by requiring its advocates to muster 60 votes. The next Democratic majority in the Senate consists of 53 Democrats and two independents likely to support the motion that shuts down a filibuster.

Elusive 60-vote target

In the hyperpartisan world of today's Congress, getting the additional five vote is well-nigh impossible because they would need to come from Republicans — and only one moderate member remains: Sen. Susan Collins of Maine.

Americans frustrated with the inefficient manner in which Congress operates would probably wish for the filibuster to disappear, but the last thing that the Founding Fathers wanted in a national legislature was efficiency. So fearful were they of unrestrained majority rule that they entrenched in the Constitution a host of protections for the minority.

The much-reviled Electoral College that walls off the presidency from the popular vote is just one. But the Senate is replete with them, such as the six-year term and the equal representation of all states irrespective of population.

However, the filibuster is not one of them. There is no mention of it in the Constitution. The process of bringing debate to a conclusion and voting evolved over time from being impossible to being simply very difficult as it is today. The device for ending debate, "cloture," has existed only since 1917.

The most obvious virtue of the filibuster is that it forces senators to compromise. Even when the majority outnumbers the minority by a sizable margin, not all members can be counted on to vote with their party leaders. The filibuster provides a strong incentive for the majority to seek the support of the minority to reach the 60-vote threshold.

Dangers of excessive use

The most conspicuous evil with the filibuster is its excessive use, a byproduct of the polarization in U.S. politics and the fact that filibusters can take place almost invisibly when a single senator, for reasons often unrelated to the substance of a bill, demands time-consuming roll calls. No impassioned oratory is required, just an adult tantrum to delay the game.

Short of banning the filibuster, which will never happen because both sides can envision themselves in the minority and resorting to its use, there are a few sensible procedural changes Reid is also considering that could thaw the frozen process and perhaps even pick up a few Republican votes:

First, is to require those who are filibustering to come to the floor and declare their reasons for obstructing a bill instead of furtively noting the absence of a quorum and demanding successive roll call votes and disappearing into their offices.

Second, is to ban the filibuster against what is called "the motion to proceed," which is the step required to take up and actually debate a bill. Allowing debate would afford a bill's opponents the chance to make their case against it while retaining multiple opportunities further along in the process to alter or kill it.

It ill becomes an institution that styles itself "the world's greatest deliberative body" to strangle the baby in its crib when there remain many chances to knock off the grown man.

If Republicans are shunning even modest filibuster reforms because they would confer an immediate advantage on the Democrats, perhaps the effective date of these modest changes could be put off for six years: three electoral cycles. But would the Democrats go along, if they thought they might not still be in power?

The future is unknowable, and the reforms might very well contribute to either party's advantage in 2018.

Ross K. Baker is a political science professor at Rutgers University and a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.

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